


She Died

by skele-kiki (iwritetrollfics)



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Horrortale, Angst, Bara Sans, Big Sans, But He's Still Very Much Papyrus, But It's Hard to Feel Bad for Him, Cannibalism, Captivity, Dark Sans, Depressed Sans, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Ecto-Penis (Undertale), Ecto-Tentacles (Undertale), Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Female Frisk, Get Your Flashlight, HorrorTale Sans, Horrortale Papyrus, It's About to Get Dark in Here, Male Chara, Murderer Sans, NSFW, Older Frisk, Paranoia, Poisoning, Poor Sans, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sadism, Sans Does Terrible Things, Sans is a Literal and Figurative Monster, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Smut, Soul Sex, Sour Apple Studio's Horrortale, Survival Horror, Torture, Unhealthy Dependency, revenge rape
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-09 22:35:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7819912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwritetrollfics/pseuds/skele-kiki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mind may forget, but the soul will always crave. A Horrortale Sans/Frisk story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. he forgot

**Author's Note:**

> how you feelin', baby?

You woke, and it was cold, but it was always cold here.

Sans liked his room cold. He’d made a few adjustments for your sake, though, like the magic-powered generator and the little space heater that clicked and groaned when you turned it on. Sometimes it would sputter, and the little coils, glowing orange in the dark of the room, would die out. Sans had fixed the thing too many times to count, and scrap was getting scarcer by the day, but you couldn’t buy anything new in the Underground anymore so it couldn’t be helped.

 _'i know another way we can heat things up,'_ he’d whispered one night when the heater had fizzled and the coils had gone dark again. You shivered at the memory (never mind the cold) and felt carefully across the worn mattress. Sans was gone, probably hunting already. The heater had died and left the room black.

The floorboards creaked under your booted feet when you sat up and fumbled for the matches to light the lamp. You had burned through the batteries you’d found for the flashlight, or rather Papyrus had burned through them playing his handheld game. He’d cried and cried when he’d seen the look on your face. He hadn’t known the batteries were so important, and it had taken the combined effort of you and Sans to calm him. You’d been upset at the time, but in hindsight you were glad Papyrus had used them for his game. It was such a normal thing to do; not something a starving, deprived monster in a dying world would think of. Papyrus was still Papyrus, and you knew that Sans had tried so hard to keep things that way.

The matches weren’t on the side-table, and so you felt around on the floor. Your fingers brushed the dirty rug, cold floorboards, and then something hard. You felt around it, thinking it might be the matchcase, and touched a sharp edge. The object was jagged, like a row of teeth.

You sucked in sharply and snatched your hand away, bringing your feet up onto the bed.

There was a set trap on the floor.

Adrenaline-born heat rushed to your head, and your heart thundered. You thought of Sans, and you knew he’d put it there, no matter how much you wanted to deny it. He’d crawled out of bed while you’d slept and set that trap in the dark as carefully as he set the ones in the woods.

But he hadn’t done it to hurt you. He’d just slipped. You knew that he’d slept with a trap beside his bed before, just in case. He’d told you that. Sometimes he just slipped. Sometimes his mind went somewhere else.

Sometimes the   **i t c h**  came back.

You banished that last thought. It had been a long time since that had happened. You fumbled again for the matches, and found them on the window sill above the bed. The lamp didn’t provide more than a fuzzy glow, but it gave you enough light to inspect the room. The heater was gone, and you suspected that Sans had finally lost his temper with it. You’d have to start sleeping downstairs again, next to the fireplace. Sans didn’t like lighting fires; the smoke was nearly invisible in the perpetual night of the Underground, but the burning smell attracted attention. There were few monsters that dared to come within a mile of the cabin, but that was still too many. You were certain Sans could handle them, you'd seen what he could do, but...

He had slept with a trap beside his bed for a reason.

You picked your way through the room, sidling around piles of hoarded junk from town, the _emergency stashes,_ and went out onto the landing. Papyrus’ door was still shut, and so you crept by it. You couldn’t hear the soft hum of the generator, but maybe Sans had turned it off. After all, what was the point of running it if he’d finally trashed the heater? The air smelled sour, rancid almost, and you made a mental note to air the place out when Sans came back with dinner.  _If_ he came back with dinner. The woods' creatures were thinning out, and it was getting harder to come by anything other than hard roots and buried acorns that the squirrels had stashed. Sans had suspected, seethingly, that there were monsters not heeding his boundaries lines anymore, and that they were hunting where they  **w e r e  n o t  a l l o w e d.** You weren't so sure. Sans had done... _things_ to dissuade the townsmonsters from coming into his territory. But everyone was hungry, and hunger had a way of making you do things you would have never done before.

Sans had told you that. He'd sounded so sad.

You hoped he wasn’t too upset over the heater. Sometimes, when he got upset, the headaches would come back. Sans called them headaches, but they seemed so much worse than that. You could remember when you’d lost track of time chasing a deer one day, a big animal that would have fed you all for a week, and you’d been late to check in at the scarred tree. Sans had rounded on you with a fury that nearly made you scream, then he’d collapsed in the snow and clutched at the splintered back of his skull like something was clawing out of it. _‘i thought you were dead,’_ he’d moaned. _'i could just see the blood.'_  You went to him, and he’d grabbed at you and sobbed into your chest: _‘it hurts so bad. i’m dyin’, baby. i’m_ dyin’ _.’_ The headaches didn’t happen so much anymore. Sans claimed that you were good for them. Good for  _him._

Your bow and quiver weren’t beside the door when you reached it, and you stopped short. The lantern creaked as you turned about the room in dismay, searching for the tools of your livelihood, and the dreadful thought that Sans might have slipped again and done something with them crept up on you. That sort of thing had happened before, when he forgot. He’d casually tossed your wallet onto the fire that one night, the one with the picture of your brother and your old boyfriend from back home _(but home was here now, so you shouldn’t think like that)_ , and everything turned to ash before you could save it. He’d watched you blankly while you sobbed and burned your fingers on the embers, like he didn’t understand what he’d done, or like his mind had gone someplace else again.

You would never admit it for the guilt you felt, because there was no way he’d done it on purpose, but you could never forgive him for it.

You took a nail-studded bat from the assorted weapons beneath the couch, and went outside. The air was still and frigid, good for hunting. There was no snow falling, and there were clear prints of sneakers making their way from the door and into the woods. You followed them, keeping your ears keen to the world around you.

Relief washed over you when you found Sans setting a trap instead of nursing the split in his skull. He had his axe with him, but not your bow or quiver. You made your footfalls loud and deliberate from a distance, and you smiled when he looked over his shoulder and stood to face you. His eye was burning wide and red in the socket, not as a pinprick.

_And not empty, thank god._

“Hey,” you said as you approached.

“hey,” he replied easily, resting an arm on his axe.

“How you feeling?”

“hungry.”

“Me, too. Catch anything yet?”

Sans eyed you as you came closer. “maybe,” he said with a wink. Your heart lifted to see him in such a good mood, and you rolled your eyes goodnaturedly.

“If we weren’t starving, I might find that _humerus_.” Sans gave a rusty chuckle at that. “Did you catch something or not?”

“yeah. c'mere.” The corner of his perpetual grin twitched, and his fingers suddenly drummed the axe handle. _Tap tap tap tap._

You stopped short at the sound.

“what?” Sans said. You stared at him, and he stared back. There was something off about the way he was watching you. Something...

_Predatory._

Cold that had nothing to do with the bleak woods crept up your back, and you felt the air leave your lungs.

Sans took his axe up. His grin twitched again. "what'sa matter? don't look at me like that."

_The trap by the bed._

You took a step back.

“you feelin’ okay, baby?”

_The rancid smell in the cabin._

You clutched the bat tightly, your fingers going numb.

“cuz you look like you’re about ta’…”

 _The awful_ tap tap tap tap.

You felt your eyes burn with tears as Sans, who was and _was not_ your Sans, leered down at you.

**“…  l o s e  y o u r  h e a d  .”**


	2. she ran

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise, baby.

You ran.

The woods were a dark blur as you plunged through them, your mind flying just as fast. This was what you had always dreaded, the nightmare that plagued you and woke you up screaming in the middle of the dark. Sans tallied the days in a notebook, counting away from the last time it had happened. He did it for both of you, to help you both stay sane, but now he didn’t remember. He didn’t realize.

The world had RESET.

You sobbed against the burning air. You didn’t know where you were running to. Just away, away from Sans. You couldn’t reason with him. You needed to get to Toriel, have her talk him down like she’d done the first time.

A sharp branch snagged at your tattered scarf and ripped it off of you. You didn’t stop for it. The woods were horribly silent aside from your panting, but you knew better than to think that Sans was far behind. If you stopped, he’d be on you.

The memories flooded back. Despite the promise Toriel had him make, Sans had still slipped and killed you a handful of times. He’d hurt you more times than you could count, and the pain had been unimaginable. He wanted to hurt you again.

That thought broke you on the inside more than anything.

Muscle memory carried you toward the Ruins. The bat in your hands was heavy, and the lantern bounced painfully against your thigh with every step. Toriel wouldn’t remember you, but that was okay. Sans wouldn’t follow you into the Ruins, and you would have all the time you needed to convince Toriel to-

_SNAP!_

You screamed and fell, landing hard on your front. The bat left your fingers as you turned on your side and howled again into the snow. The lantern had been doused in your fall, and even though the sickly stars gave you just enough light to see what had happened, you knew the sound and crushing pressure by heart.

A trap was closed around your boot, its rusty teeth not halfway up your calf. It hadn’t pierced through, but the force of its closing had broken something, you just knew it. Your leg throbbed in time with your heart, and you clutched at it and cried against the pain. Snow drifted lazily down on you.

“ooh.”

You looked up through wet lashes at the gravelly voice. Sans was standing not ten feet from you, having crept up quiet as a cat. A pinprick of red pulsed in his eyesocket, casting a glow around the sharp edges of his skull. He leaned on his axe again and drummed the handle compulsively. _Tap tap tap tap._

“that looks like it hurts, baby. it _does_ hurt, doesn’t it?” You gritted your teeth and tried to pry the trap open, but you weren’t strong enough. Sans had always been the one to do the trapping. “yeah, that’s a real doozy, innit? you oughta’ be more careful out here; some **p s y c h o ’ s** been leavin’ those things all over the place.” He tossed his head back and laughed, a manic and hollow sound. He stalked closer.

Your heart thumped madly as his massive shadow swamped you. He was swinging the axe casually back and forth. _Whoosh. Whoosh._ This was just like before, and you were done.

‘ _Don’t get caught, don’t get caught.’_

Desperation seized you. Your throat was tight as a vise, but you forced the words out anyway: “There’s been a RESET!” Sans stopped swinging the axe and looked at you. His grin dampened.

“what?”

“A _RESET!_ Sans, it’s me! It’s Frisk! You have to remember, please, you have to! We’re-”

“A RESET?”

“Yes!” you cried hoarsely. “The timeline’s RESET! You know me, I swear! Just think, just remember!”

Sans’ grin had turned sour at the corners, and the bone between his sockets pinched in an attempt at a frown. You weren’t sure how much time you’d bought yourself.

“I can prove it,” you continued quickly, the words rushing out so fast they were almost garbled. The pain from your leg was making you shake. Without hesitation, you reached for him and tugged on his soul, trying to draw it out.

Sans recoiled, his eye flashing bright as he pummeled you with a burst of paralyzing magic. Every muscle in your body locked, and the pain from your trapped leg nearly reeled you into unconsciousness. You wanted to scream, needed to, but you couldn’t. The magic felt like hot coals held against your skin, and if you struggled they would press harder. The snow around you gleamed red with the magic’s light.

‘that’s a nifty trick, baby,’ Sans said cheerfully, though his expression was dark and full of horrible promise. ‘but i got a better one.’

 _No, no, I have to show you!_ Pain seared your throat when you fought to speak. It came out as a muffled grunt, barely audible over the crunch of snow beneath Sans’ dirty sneakers as he approached you.

‘here’s the trick. i’ma make you ten pounds lighter and two feet taller. you ready?”

The tears were frozen in place on your cheeks. The magic was suffocating and burning.

Sans moved behind you, dragging the axe through the snow, and took up a tight fistful of your hair. Every nerve from your neck and upward screamed in agony against the restricting magic as he pulled your head back, exposing the curve of your throat. He rested the axe’s chipped blade against it.

“one…”

“Wa… wait,” you grated, every sound like pushing hot glass across your vocal chords. “I’m… I’m… the…” Sans brought the axe back a little and touched it to the same spot. He was grinning madly.

“two…”

“Legen…dary... Fa…”

“three!”

_“Fartmaster!”_

The blade hummed through the air as you screamed the last word. The heat of the magic flared as you braced for impact, but there was no bloom of splitting pain, no fountain of blood. The stinging hold on your hair released, and the magic prison followed. You collapsed.

“wow.”

It was silent for a moment, and then there was crunching around you. You struggled to lift your face, tear-streaked and powdered with snow. Sans was crouched before you, the axe lying across his knees. He drummed its handle furiously. _Tap tap tap tap. Tap tap tap tap._

“that’s really childish,” he said, but his voice held no edge of mockery. It was flat and lifeless. “completely infantile, really.” You watched his mouth twitch at the corners, and then he reached up to hook his fingers in the eyesocket that wasn’t flaring. _Tap tap tap tap._

He remembered the codeword. He had to. He’d given it to you for just this occasion _(and laughed and laughed, though he admitted that there was absolutely nothing funny about needing to use it)_.

“Please,” you whispered. Your leg throbbed deep in the bone like someone was tapping it with a hammer, and you realized you were going to faint. “Remember me. _Frisk_.”

Sans’ grin twisted, and then he winced. He grabbed at the back of his skull. Were the memories coming back to him? It had always hurt you when that happened, like your head was already full of one timeline and another one had to crush its way in there. Was that happening to him now? You dared to hope.

“That’s right,” you said as encouragingly as you could manage. Your head was so heavy now. “Remember me, Sans. _Frisk._ You and me and Papyrus-”

“shut up.”

You watched groggily as he stood and pointed the axe down at you. “you shut the hell up,” he hissed between his teeth, and the burning of his eye became so intense that it hurt to look at him. “chara sent you, didn’t he? the little shit.” He was furious, but sweat was beading on his brow. You didn’t know who Chara was.

“Nobody… sent me,” you muttered, the world fading to dark. “I was with… you.”

“liar!” Sans roared, a discordant an inhuman sound, and red magic flared around you. It should have hurt, but you were too far gone to feel much. You felt yourself being lifted up by the front of your threadbare coat, and then all you could see was a burning red spot.

The world went black.

* * *

Sitting next to the little heater in the smokiness of the cabin, you leaned carefully over the sweater you were darning with a fish hook. Papyrus was in the kitchen, banging pots around as he got water ready to boil for woods spaghetti _(actually just boiled acorns and a long-rooted grass)_ and sang off-key to a fuzzy song on the radio. It was an eerie thing to think that someone was still playing music for the Underground, but you were grateful for it. Warped and distorted as the sound was, it filled the silence.

The front door opened, and a gust of cold air blew in. You shielded the candle whose light you were working by and looked over to see Sans stomping the snow off of his sneakers. He slammed the door shut and grinned at you. There was something big slung over his shoulder.

“surprise, baby,” he said.

Your heart leapt, and you jumped up to run to him. He caught you in one arm, the other holding the meat on his shoulder, and laughed. It was so good to hear.

“Oh, my god, Sans,” was all you could say. His shirt was soaked dark with blood, but you were so happy that you hugged him anyway. “Oh, my god.”

“i like the sound’a that,” he rumbled, and squeezed your thin body to him.

“What is it?”

“deer.”

You followed Sans as he took the meat into the kitchen. Papyrus was looming over the electric stove, stirring something in a battered, old pot. His long face lit up at the sight of Sans, then drooped when he saw the meat. He declared that he’d already devised a super-special culinary masterpiece for tonight, and had no need for the meat.

“I HAVE FOUND A PIECE OF CHOCOLATE INSIDE THE COUCH! IT WILL PERFECT THE WOODS SPAGHETTI!”

Sans raised a boney brow at you, as if asking which you would rather have. It was only to spare Papyrus’ pride, though. You knew Sans craved the meat more than you did.

“That sounds great, Pap,” you said with a smile, “but how about we save it for when we find you a better cook pot? We’re going to see Grillby tomorrow, and he’s bound to have something more suitable for a chef.” Papyrus’ beady eyes gleamed at the word _chef,_ and you knew you’d won. He considered the questionable-looking chocolate lump on the countertop as if making a heavy decision, and then nodded.

“VERY WELL, HUMAN,” he said. “I SHALL FINISH PREPARING THE WOODS SPAGHETTI, AND YOU SHALL HAVE THE HONOR OF MAKING THE MEATBALLS.”

Papyrus turned back to the stove, and you went to pull the cleaver down from the wall. As you did, you caught Sans watching you. His eye was burning fiercely with approval, and with something else that made heat pool low in your belly. When you tried to sidle past, he grabbed your arm and pulled you to him. You leaned back to keep from pressing into his bloody clothes.

“You’re sticky all over,” you whispered scoldingly, but you were grinning like an idiot.

“didn’t bother you a minute ago,” he said with a leer. His eye flashed to Papyrus, obliviously humming along with the radio, then back to you. His grin turned devious. “tell him you gotta help me with somethin’ upstairs,” he murmured.

“I’m not helping you with _anything,”_ you said with a pointed look at the glowing bulge in his shorts, “until you go wash up. You look like you skinned that poor deer with your axe.”

“mebbe i did.”

“Sans!”

“SANS!” You both jumped as Papyrus shouted. “YOU’RE DISTRACTING THE HUMAN FROM HER MEATBALL-MAKING. GO PICK UP YOUR SOCK!”

Sans held his skeletal hands up in defeat, then turned to go. A thought struck you, and you grabbed his sleeve to stop him before he went into the living room.

“Where’s the hide?” you said excitedly.

“ah.” Sans flexed his stained fingers and looked down at them. “it was all mangy,” he said. “couldn’t use a bit of it. you’ll have to _fur-_ give me for leaving it.”

“SANS!”

You laughed at the pun and Papyrus’ outrage about it, but the disappointment was there, and you immediately felt guilty. Sans had worked hard for this, like he worked for everything. You were going to eat well tonight and for the next few days because of him. How dare you be disappointed?

“It’s fine,” you told Sans, forcing a smile that you hoped betrayed none of your thoughts. You could do without a new coat for a while longer. “Go relax, big guy. You earned it.”

“AND PICK UP YOUR SOCK!”

Later that night, after you had all eaten as much as your bellies _(magical and non)_ could hold, you gathered in front of the TV to watch a static-filled rerun of Mettaton’s cooking show. Papyrus was beside himself with excitement; the channel wasn’t always broadcasting, and sometimes the transmission cut in the middle of the episode. He lay on the matted rug, chin in-hand and socked feet kicking the air, while you lay on top of Sans on the couch. Normally he would have needed to layer pillows on top of himself to make you comfortable, but the food had given him much of his energy back; a swell of magic beneath his shirt, like a big, soft belly, cushioned you from the unforgiving sharpness of his bones. 

You watched Mettaton bake a wedding cake for himself through half-lidded eyes, content from the heavy meal. Sans ran his fingers through your hair, gently combing the snarls loose and scratching your scalp. He’d bathed and changed into fresh clothes; he smelled like the soap you liked, the kind he’d started trading with Toriel for. It was normal to have things like soap.

Papyrus went upstairs to sleep after the show ended, and Sans waited until his door shut before going to rig the traps by the front door and windows. You carried the heater upstairs, and then you both crawled into bed. You were beginning to bundle up in your coat, suspecting that the heater would probably kick off at some point during the night, when Sans stopped you.

“i’m sorry about the deer,” he said. In the dim glow of the heater’s coils, you could see the guilt in his face. “that coat’s shit, baby. i’ll make it up to you, i promise.”

You kissed his crooked teeth and told him there was nothing to be sorry about, that your old coat was just fine. He teased that you were a bad liar. You brought up the “ _fur-_ give me” pun and laughed until you cried. His eye blazed at that with the same intensity as it had in the kitchen.

He squeezed inquiringly at your boney hips, and you pulled him on top of you. You both shrugged out of your clothes through a sloppy, and admittedly desperate, groping and mashing of lips to teeth. The room was bathed bloody red with magic.

Sans lifted your hips and pushed into you too hard and too fast, and it hurt, but it was a good hurt. You scraped your nails across his ribs, and he growled. The abused bedsprings creaked and groaned as he rocked inside you with a zeal you hadn’t expected. He rasped that you were an angel, a saint.

He called you **f u c k i n’  p e r f e c t .**

You cried out and arched off the bed when the orgasm hit you, and then he lurched down and sunk his teeth into your shoulder. You stifled a scream and pushed against him, but he was much too strong and he only bit harder, and a second jolt of molten pleasure rolled your eyes back. Sans growled and shuddered. You felt him pump deep into you three more times, and then your insides were hot and glowing through your skin. Your womb ached, and you opened your eyes to see that he’d filled you so taut that your belly was swollen. He let go of your shoulder and ran his red tongue over the bite. It stung.

“I love you,” you gasped as he pushed himself up over you.

“i love you,” he panted back, his eye boring into you. You could see your blood smeared across his teeth. “fuck, i love you.”

* * *

“wake up.”

You turned your head, but didn’t open your eyes. A sudden pressure against your leg made you cry and jolt upright.

Sans towered over you, his sneaker hovering threateningly above your wounded leg. The trap had been removed, but the limb was swollen and undoubtedly purple beneath your jeans. Despite the pain, you scrambled back until you hit a wall, and you realized that your good leg had a metal cuff and a chain around its ankle. You looked frantically around yourself.

You were in the cellar beneath the cabin.

The place was nearly empty, as it had been before you’d carefully stocked all of those preserves with Papyrus. There was a cabinet in the corner with a few junk items on it, but nothing else. A single lightbulb flickered and buzzed above you.

“so,” Sans said, crossing his arms in front of him, “this is how this is gonna work. you’re gonna tell me who gave you that codeword, and i’m not gonna pry your fingernails off.” You choked back a whimper. “sound like a deal?”

You nodded, and he came over to crouch in front of you. “good.” He didn’t have his axe, but he was no less menacing without it. He _tap tap tap tapped_ his knee and stared at you. “so, who gave you the codeword? was it that Chara fuck?”

“No. You gave it to me, in case there was a RESET.”

Sans stared hard at you, his pupil threatening to shrink to a pinprick, and then he nodded. “okay,” he said. You watched him stand up and go over to the cabinet. When he turned back around and came toward you, you screamed.

“alrighty,” he said, snatching hold of you as you tried to crawl into the corner. He pinched the pliers open and shut experimentally. “one more time; tell me who gave you the codeword.”

“ _You_ did!” you wept, tugging desperately at the arm he held. His grip was like a vise. “You did, Sans! Just let me show you, please- _NOOO!”_ He clamped the pliers’ jaws underneath one of your fingernails and ripped it loose.

You screamed so loudly it hurt your own ears.

Sans flicked the bloody nail away and started on another, his expression dark. “you’re a bad liar, baby.” You shrieked at him that you weren’t lying, that you didn’t know what else to tell him. He casually pried up another and flicked it away.

Your mind was spinning. The pain was tearing your control away, and all you could babble was, “I can’t, I can’t, please, no,” by the time he selected a third finger. He clamped the pliers down. You sobbed-

-and then you ripped his soul out as hard as you could.

It caught Sans entirely by surprise, and he screamed in agony and fell away from you. Before he could regroup, you used the last bit of your determination to encourage your own soul out in front of you. You cradled the precious, heart-shaped thing without touching it, alongside Sans’ soul, close to your chest. A sob of relief escaped you when you looked at them.

“you little _bitch,”_ Sans hissed, pushing himself up onto all fours. His sockets had gone black, and he was holding his chest where his soul had been pulled out. “i’m gonna  **r i p  y o u  a p a r t.”**

You shrank against the wall as he stood and loomed over you. Your soul throbbed fearfully, its cherry glow all but begging you to put it back, but you wouldn’t. This was the only chance you had to save yourself.

You held the two souls up to Sans.

For a moment he looked as though he were going to do just as he’d said, and rip your soul to shreds. It throbbed madly as he reached for it with trembling fingers, but then he faltered. He scrutinized it, a tiny light reigniting in his eyesocket, and you knew that he could see what you’d seen, what you knew would be there:

grey tendrils swirling along its surface.

Sans shook as he looked at his own soul, an upended heart of sickly grey. It pulsed dully and erratically, but there were bright swirls of red coursing along it.

“Please,” you whispered. “Please, believe me.”

As you both watched, the two souls slowly ceased their terrified and erratic throbbing to pulse together. The swirls of color in each found the same pattern.

Sans snatched his soul back. You gasped at the pain as his soul was wrenched away from yours, and you could have sworn that you saw the same expression on his face. Your soul darted back to safety, and the warm glow vanished. You panted from the effort, and Sans stared at you. He hooked his fingers into his dark eyesocket.

_Tap tap tap tap._

“Sans.”

He grimaced and reached up to the split in his skull.

“Sans, it’s okay. Just listen to me.”

He turned and ran for the door. You cried after him, but he didn’t stop. The door slammed shut behind him, and you heard a heavy bolt fall. Footsteps pounded up the cellar stairs, and then the doors up top slammed.

You sat in the dim, swaying light of the bulb, blood pooling around your wounded fingers. They throbbed and shook. You turned your head away from them, toward the wall with the cabinet, and sitting on it you saw the little heater. Its chrome sides were still shiny and new, if dusty, and none of its parts looked as though they’d been replaced yet.

You hid your face in your good hand and cried.


End file.
